Mount Kearsarge Shines in  General   

Mount Kearsarge shines with ice; from hemlock branches
snow slides onto snow; no stream, creek, or river
budges but remains still. Tonight
we carry armloads of logs

from woodshed to Glenwood and build up the fire
that keeps the coldest night outside our windows.
Sit by the woodstove, Camilla,
while I bring glasses of white,

and we'll talk, passing the time, about weather
without pretending that we can alter it:
Storms stop when they stop, no sooner,
leaving the birches glossy

with ice and bent glittering to rimy ground.
We'll avoid the programmed weatherman grinning
from the box, cheerful with tempest,
and take the day as it comes,

one day at a time, the way everyone says,
These hours are the best because we hold them close
in our uxorious nation.
Soon we'll walk -- when days turn fair

and frost stays off -- over old roads, listening
for peepers as spring comes on, never to miss
the day's offering of pleasure
for the government of two.

By Donald Hall

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Other poems by Donald Hall:

• A Poet at Twenty
• Affirmation
• An old life
• Christmas party at the South Danbury Church
• Distressed Haiku
• Je Suis une table
• Mount Kearsarge Shines
• Name of Horses
• Sudden Things
• The Alligator Bride
• The Man In The Dead Machine
• Villanelle
• White Apples
• Wolf Knife